Alone in the Corner

Best and Worst on Offense

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 03:25:00 -0400

The stat I like to use most to determine how effective a players offensive production has been (individually) is points per possession or ppp.

ppp basically tells us how many points per possession your team scored when you were the offensive player who ended the possession. Baskets are positive, misses, and turnovers are negative.

The one thing you’ll notice with ppp numbers is that by and large they are dominated by guys that shoot (and make) a lot of 3 pointers. In general catch and shoot 3 point shooters are usually near the top of the list. PPP is highly contextual, its really useful to compare players who perform similar tasks, but not that useful in comparing players with disparate skill types.

To wit Derrick Rose has a ppp of .78 on 93 possessions, whereas Kyle Korver, a player who benefits from the type of wide open 3 point looks a guy like Derek Rose creates has a ppp of 1.20.

So with that in mind;

Here are the top 5 players in ppp (minimum 20 possessions used).

1. Ray Allen 48 possessions 1.54 ppp

2. Brandon Roy 31 possessions 1.29 ppp

3. Peja Stojakovic 28 possessions 1.29 points per

4. Ron Artest 33 possessions 1.21 points per

5. Wes Matthews 41 possessions 1.20 points per

Bottom 5

1. Glen Davis 22 possessions .45 points per

2. Tyler Hansbrough 38 possessions .53 points per

3. Tyson Chandler 22 possessions .55 points per

4. Andre Iguodala 27 possessions .56 points per

5. Jose Juan Barea 28 possessions .57 points per

Other notables;

Tony Parker 66 possessions .73 points per

Pau Gasol 44 possessions .75 points per

Rajon Rondo 66 possessions .83 points per

Carmelo Anthony 84 possessions .86 points per

Dirk Nowitzki 80 possessions .98 points per

Dwyane Wade 43 possessions 1.07 points per

LeBron James 45 possessions 1.18 points per

Chris Paul 68 possessions 1.09 points per

Kobe Bryant 77 possessions .97 points per

Kevin Durant 84 possessions 1.07 points per

Andrew Bynum 45 possessions .98 points per

High Stakes Poker

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:56:00 -0400

I got an email a little while back from Mori of PokerProductions asking if I’d like to take part in the upcoming season of High Stakes Poker. For those unfamiliar with High Stakes Poker here is the wiki link. I used to play quite a bit of poker from 2005-2007 some would even say I actually played it quite well.

In the last few years I have been preoccupied with other things, so I haven’t much interest in playing poker. Truthfully the high stakes live poker scene kind of peaked in 2007, in 2007 you’d have all kinds of drop ins playing high stakes, guys like Pete the Plumber would show up one weekend gamble pretty high - win some / lose some. Then vanish.

In the summer of 2007 there was a regular 100-200 NL game, along with a few 200-400 blind NL games, these games were regularly filled with people who were willing to (and quite often destined to) lose large sums of money as if it was their job.

By the summer of 2008 the poker scene had cooled off considerably. There was still the odd music producer, former street performer turned cosmonaut as well a few other characters who showed up, played and shoved their money into the center of the table. But for the most part those games ran infrequently, and when they did it was very difficult to get a seat.

So when I heard that High Stakes Poker was filming its 8th season, and by the way Full Tilt Pros like Durrr, Phil Ivey, and Patrik Antonius (arguably the 3 best and toughest poker players to play against in the world) were not allowed to play. Despite me being extremely rusty at poker, and not really having played stakes like that in some time, I snap accepted.

I flew into Vegas from Burbank the morning the day of the shoot. Usually the way things work is you play poker for around 5 hours, take a dinner break, and then finish up at around 10pm that night. They then take that days worth of taping and turn into X shows depending on how interesting / compelling the play was for that day.

I don’t think that our day of taping was too interesting, for the most part nobody really went off, but the opportunity to make money seemed pretty good.

My table looked like this;

Phil Laak

Mike Baxter (businessman who I have played quite a bit with)

Jonathan Duhamel (WSOP ME winner)

Jason Mercier

Rando businessman

Barry Greenstein.

My initial thoughts were that I wanted to play as many pots as possible with the Rando businessmen, and try to play as simple a game as possible.

The blinds were 400-800 with a 100 ante, meaning it would cost you $2000 to play one round. Most of the people at the table bought in for the minimum $200,000 and I did the same, I was prepared to buy in for another $400,000 if the situation warranted and I went busto.

The last time I had played any remotely moderately staked poker was in 2008, the game then was 500-1000 blind NL (then switched to PLO) and it was easily the wildest / biggest game I had ever played in. I lost a 550,000 pot in the first hour, decided to take a walk around the casino and decide whether I wanted to continue.

I decided the game was too good to pass up, and continued playing for around 15 more hours. Won the biggest pot of my life, questioned my sanity for playing in a game where most hands were straddled and restraddled sometimes re-re straddled.

For those who are unaware of what this means it means that people would involuntary post 3rd and 4th (sometimes 5th) blinds of $2000, $4000 and $8000 by the time it got to you, it would be 4-8000 to call, sometimes $25,000 to call. Every orbit someone would stick 300-400k in the middle of the table, get called and then say - I don’t have much what do you have? Want to run it twice?

So ya - that was the last time I played live poker and here I was on set getting ready to play a fairly big buyin NL cash game.

The people at High Stakes Poker don’t want you posting any results prior to airing but I’ll will say that I make arguably the worst fold in the history of televised poker (it seemed right when I folded), marginal 1-2 mins later and epically bad 30 mins later.

I had never played a cash game with Barry G before and to be honest hadn’t seen much of his cash game play (I rarely watch the tv shows that I am not on because I am vain like that). So when I made the fold it felt okay, after seeing Barry play for the rest of the day, I was sure I made a bad fold. I am not sure if this hand appears in episode 1 or 2 but it will surely make the show.

For those interested the show airs on GSN at 5pm PST tonight.

Defensive Philosophies

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:21:00 -0500

After an extremely long blogging hiatus, I have decided to see if I can’t return to blogging some.

I found it interesting that the Lakers one of the few Western Conference team (i think) to not send a representative to SSAC .

And then I read an article that Kevin Ding has written detailing how the Lakers have tweaked their defense to adjust to the modern game.

“The concession is the Lakers will let opponents take mid-range jumpers from 15 to 19 feet. The Lakers can stay out on 3-point shooters better and keep point guards from getting all the way to the basket. When Tony Parker got hot early for San Antonio on Sunday, the Lakers moved up their plug just enough to deter him”

The lakers have basically decided to guard the 3point line, and the paint and leave the midrange game somewhat open, the fascinating thing about this isn’t that the Lakers have finally caught up to the advanced defensive strategy that teams like the Spurs, and Magic under Van Gundy have been employing for some time, its that they have been winning championships in spite of this.

The “genius” in this is that you are basically allowing the worst ev shot in basketball the midrange jumper, and taking away all the higher ev shots. Trivial yes, but the fact that the Lakers have finally discovered this is troubling to the rest of the league.

I remember listening to a Phil Jackson presser from the 2008 season where he described his disdain for the corner 3 point shot - he argued that once the defensive rebound was secured. it led to a higher than normal amount of transition opportunities.

I have always been a big proponent of the corner three point shot - after watching the Lakers repeatedly leave Ray Allen, Eddie House, and James Posey wide open from the corner (the Posey 3 point shots were especially comical as you’d have Lamar Odom streaking down the center of the court awaiting a fast break outlet pass that never materialized), it was clear to me that the Lakers were actually coaching their team to abandon the corner 3 point area in hopes of exploiting transition opportunities.

I decided to watch and chart every 3 point shot and the ensuing rebound from the 2007 and 2008 season and found that the corner 3 point shot did not lead to higher than normal fast break opportunities.

The Lakers are going to be a much tougher out in the playoffs if they are able to consistently protect the paint and close out on 3 point shooters.

Which brings me to this shot chart;

This is a shot chart from the 1st quarter of the Miami Heat @ San Antonio Spurs game from last week. Note how the Heat (offense on the left) were relegated to a mid range jump shooting team, they have no chance of beating the better (defensive) teams in the regular season or the playoffs unless they figure out a way to get something other than a series of 16-20 foot jumpers in the half court.

Photo

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:13:00 -0500

Research Assistant Position

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:05:30 -0500

I am currently looking to bring on at least one research assistant here are the details of the job;

1. The pay is crap / non-existent to start, but if you prove to me your worth we will work something out.

2. You can work from home

3. You will be collecting tidbits of newspaper articles and information and emailing them to me, a good example would be finding links to video of coaches post game conferences and emailing me. You’d also be expected to send me links to newspaper articles that I might find relevant. You’ll put a snippet of text in the email and then provide me with the link to the whole article.

Here is an example;

Shaq and Jermaine Both “Unlikely” To Play vs. Heat?

Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston has the full coverage in his Practice Report but for now, here’s what we know as the team headed in practice today:

Jermaine O’Neal did not practice due to his sore left knee
Shaquille O’Neal was going to try to practice today
Both players are “unlikely” to play Saturday

http://celticshub.com/2010/11/10/shaq-and-jermaine-both-unlikely-to-play-vs-heat/

If anyone is interested please contact me bob (@) nbaplaycharting.com

NBA wants players on their best behavior

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 19:28:00 -0400

The NBA has announced that they would like to renew a sense of “Respect for the Game and will likely increase the number or technical fouls called as a result of complaining. The goal of which is to reduce the amount of complaining and (I am assuming) gesticulating from players and coaches alike.

You can read all about it here;

and

Cut the Complaining

etc etc.

The interesting thing in all of this we have already been over this consider;

““The goal here is to significantly reduce the amount of player complaining that takes place in our games. The reason we’re doing is because excessive complaining by the players interferes with game play, it’s distracting to the fans, and it conveys a negative impression of our players as well. So, the goal here is, as I mentioned, to reduce that and help our overall game.”

If you think that is from a recent article, guess again. Its from a Q&A from November of 2006 with Stu Jackson.

In the 2005-2006 (2006)regular season 873 techs were called. *note these are techs that are not the result of illegal defense infractions etc, just plain old techs.

After the league made its internal change prior to the start of the 2007 season we saw an increase in the amount of techs called.

There were 992 techs called in the 2007 season, but only 810 techs called in the 2008 season.

If you are wondering why the NBA did away with its vigor in reducing complaining from the players in between the 2007 and 2008 season you might want to read some of the older posts on this blog (Tim Donaghy).

This would like never have been allowed in 2007 (nor in 2011 it seems)

I guess this new announcement to reduce complaining to the officials is as good a sign as any that the Tim Donaghy scandal has now been put to rest by the NBA.

Somewhere Rasheed Wallace is glad he decided to retire;

I hope its not over, but it likely is...

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:59:17 -0400

Miami has apparently filled out one if its vacant spots with the signing of Mike Miller and as much as I hate to say it, its over for the rest of the league. I had the Heat winning ~64 games with the “trinity” and 9 scrubs. The addition of Mike Miller is a perfect complement to that roster.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that Miami does not need a starting PG, in fact there is this assumption in the NBA that every team requires a PG but why is that the case? You have two extremely high usage players in LeBron and D. Wade, why on earth would you want to play a small PG who will become a defensive liability.

Unless you have a top 5 PG, players like Kobe, LeBron, and D.Wade can and should be the defacto point guards for their team.

I have held this belief for a number of years and cringed in 2009 when the Lakers rolled out a lineup of;

D Fisher

Kobe

Ariza

Gasol

Bynum

Instead of;

Kobe

Ariza

Odom

Bynum

Gasol.

This past year M. Williams and D. West were injured for CLE forcing LeBron to play extended mins at the point, this was an extremely efficient lineup. When the cavs played Boston in the playoffs, why exactly was Mo Williams on the floor, he couldn’t guard Rondo to begin with. Williams’ role was basically reduced to that of being a spot of shooter with LeBron handling the ball.

How is having Mo Williams on the floor any better than having someone like Mike Miller on the floor?

It isn’t.

Teams with players like LeBron and D. Wade (or Kobe for that matter) don’t need PG’s unless they are defensive wizards who are required to guard the ultra quick guards like Aaron Brooks or Chris Paul.

Miami is only lacking a body at the center position, any serviceable big will do, heck they could sign one of the Collins twins and Kurt Thomas and that would be that. Who is going to beat this team?

People have mentioned that the Lakers are the team to beat, I have never been a Kobe fan before, but I just became one - I think they present the toughest challenge to Miami but if MIA gets home court throughout the playoffs and breezes through the regular season as they should. That is going to be a tall order for them.
The one advantage the Lakers have is that they will likely cake walk into the finals whereas Miami will likely have to face one of Orlando or Boston (and maybe both).

Boston is a team that has all the parts to beat Miami, unfortunately the parts areold and decaying rapidly. In order to compete with Miami you are going to need two very good defensive players, one for LBJ and one for Wade.

They don’t come any better than Allen and Pierce, but can we really expect these guys to make one more run. And if Allen got tired guarding Kobe, can you imagine how fatigued he’d get trying to stay in front of D. Wade?

If Boston wants to have a shot they should strongly consider re-signing Tony Allen, and while they are at it they might want to stick him in a gym and teach him how to shoot the ball.

Orlando has been mentioned as a team that will give Miami fits because of D. Howard, but as much as I like Orlando and Stan Van Gundy they don’t have anyone on their roster who can handle either LeBron or Wade let alone both of them.

Howard would be tough for Miami to handle but it won’t matter because I really believe this current Miami team will be one of if not the best offensive teams in league history. The current Orlando squad would match up horribly against this Miami team.

OKC provides a glimmer of hope - if they can add one more great player then they have a shot in a few years time. They have Westbrook who has the ability to be a decent defender, as does Harden. And they have a relative defensive ace in Thabo Sefalosha, but nobody with enough size to handle LeBron. The players in the league who are best suited to handle LeBron, Artest, Pierce, and Battier are all on the wrong side of 30.

Get back to me when Lebron is 31 because for the next 5 years it’s over.

The new Big Three wins 64 games

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:15:00 -0400

I have read varying reports in terms of how many games the Miami heat expect to win next year with Bosh, James and Wade and have decided to post the results of our season simulator.

Because the rest of the roster is unknown we filled out the roster with what we term scrubbish players. WIthout going into detail on how we arrive at a number for these players lets just call them below avg or somewhat below avg players.

Once Miami fills out the rest of their roster with actual players we’ll get a much clearer picture, but for now here is our prediction of how the big and 9 scrubbies will fair next year.

* note this assumes they all play 82 games which of course isn’t likely.

wins      PS     PA   diff
 --------------------------
 64.4   110.2   97.3   12.9

 team     eff   efg%   tov%   orb%   ftr%
 ----------------------------------------
  MIA    1.18  51.66  14.53  35.04  28.26
  OPP    1.04  45.00  17.01  34.21  26.75

 player   g  gs   min
 -----------------------
 BoshChr01  82  82  33.0
 JamesLe01  82  82  33.0
 scrubish1  82  82  48.1
 scrubish1  82  82  48.1
 scrubish1  82   0   3.7
 scrubish1  82   0  13.8
 scrubish1  82   0  15.1
 scrubish1  82   0  11.4
 scrubish1  82   0   0.0
 WadeDwy01  82  82  34.3

Kobe Bryants Playoff offensive points per possession (ppp) by...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:28:00 -0400

Kobe Bryants Playoff offensive points per possession (ppp) by opponent / season dating back to 2003.

LeBron James Playoff ppp by season / opponent. Amazing how well...

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:26:00 -0400

LeBron James Playoff ppp by season / opponent. Amazing how well the Spurs did against him in the 4 game sweep of 2007.

Celtics Defense vs Kobe

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:15:00 -0400

Much was made of Kobe Bryants breakout performance in the 3q of yesterdays game. Doc Rivers called him the games best shot maker and I would have to agree with that assessment. It is also quite clear however that in the last 3 playoff seasons no team has defended Kobe Bryant better than the Celtics.

An offensive metric that I really like to use is points per possession - this is much better than any offensive efficiency metric because it takes into account all of the possession altering offensive actions a player might make;

(Shots, turnovers and fouls drawn)

In the Lakers last 3 deep playoff runs 2008,2009 and this year through 5 games, Kobe Bryant has averaged

1.00 ppp on 1936 actions.

Which means that for every time Kobe Bryant has the ball and makes an offensive action (shot, turnover or shooting foul) he has netted roughly 1.00 points.

If you take the Celtics out of the equation he has the following numbers;

(every team he has faced in the playoffs in the past 3 years excluding the Celtics).

1.03 ppp on 1597 actions.

His numbers vs the Celtics in the 2008 and 2010 finals are as follows;

.89 ppp on 339 actions.

Which is a stark contrast from the 1.03 he has averaged vs every other team.

Also interesting to note is that the Celtics have done an even better job on LeBron James.

LeBron James vs all teams other than Boston in the last 3 playoffs;

1.11 ppp on 752 actions

vs the Celtics;

.86 on 405 actions.

Finals Defensive Numbers Updated;

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:31:00 -0400

After game 5 there has been quite the change in some of the numbers I posted the other day. Here then are the updated numbers through 5 games.

With Bynum in;

Boston is scoring;

Total Unique Possessions: 227 Total PPP: 1.066

Bynum out;

Total Unique Possessions: 219 Total PPP: 1.013

Looking at the Celtics offensive numbers in the paint we see the following;

With Bynum in;

Total Unique Possessions: 78 Total PPP: 1.17

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 86 PPPlay: 1.06

With Bynum out;

Total Unique Possessions: 66 Total PPP: 1.21

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 75 PPPlay: 1.066

Bynum Secondary Help;

Total Unique Possessions: 31 Total PPP: 0.71

Garnett Secondary Help;

Total Unique Possessions: 31 Total PPP: 0.81

Celtics Defenders guarding Kobe Bryant;

Ray Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 79 Total PPP: 0.80

Tony Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 28 Total PPP: 0.54

Paul Pierce

Total Unique Possessions: 20 Total PPP: 0.8

Attacking Artest

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 20:36:24 -0400

The Celts like to use Pierce in ISO sets, but this is not the matchup to be doing this - they should focus more on bringing him off of screens and cuts to the basket. They can also use him as the ball handler in Pick and Roll sets. Artest struggles mightily moving laterally but is a great postup and ISO defender -

Here are some examples that illustrate how poorly he moves off of cuts and screens;

NBA Finals advanced defensive numbers

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 08:13:00 -0400

Much has been made of the status of Andrew Bynum, lets start of by taking a look at some per possession number involving Bynum.

Starting with the most basic,

With Bynum In;

Total Plays: 260

Total Unique Possessions: 170 Total PPP: 1.011

This means the Celtics are scoring at a rate of 1.01 per possession with Bynum on the court.

Bynum out;

Total Plays: 310

Total Unique Possessions: 187 Total PPP: 1.069

To put things in perspective through the first four games the average number of possessions per game has been 93.5 possessions. If Bynum was a machine and could play the entire game Boston would rate to score around 5.4 fewer points.

Bynum does a few things well defensively, for one he rebounds the ball extremely well, and he makes scoring in the paint very difficult.

Looking at the Celtics offensive numbers in the paint we see the following;

With Bynum in;

Total Unique Possessions: 61 Total PPP: 1.05

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 69 PPPlay: 0.92

With Bynum out;

Total Unique Possessions: 60 Total PPP: 1.23

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 68 PPPlay: 1.08

* note that the difference between per play and per possession denotes whether or not the ball has changed possession. Its possible to have several plays in the same possession (offensive rebounding would be one example). In addition the per possession numbers account for the ensuing free throws that were the result of an in the paint shooting foul.

To drive the point home, when Andrew Bynum has been the secondary help defender on a play, the Celts offensive numbers look like this;

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 25 PPPlay: 0.56

To put that in Perspective, KG’s secondary help defensive numbers look like this;

Total Plays W/ OffPe: 26 PPPlay: 0.76

It’ll be interesting to see how the Lakers can adjust if it turns out Bynum is limited from here on out in the series.

I also thought it’d be interesting to see how various Celtic Defenders have defended Kobe. Here then are Kobe’s offensive per possession numbers vs the Celtics main defenders.

Ray Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 64 Total PPP: 0.76

Tony Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 24 Total PPP: 0.54

Paul Pierce

Total Unique Possessions: 10 Total PPP: 0.4

To put things in perspective her are Kobe’s numbers from the Phoenix series;

Total Unique Possessions: 276 Total PPP: 1.13

I actually advocate the Celtics playing Pierce on Kobe as much as possible, I realize that Artest poses a tough defensive matchup for Allen but the idea of Ron Artest having a more pronounced role on offense doesn’t scare me too much if I am the Celtics. I also feel like based on their offensive styles, Allen has to exert so much energy on offense running through screens to get open, it would be nice for him to get a bit of a respite and not have to guard Kobe as much on offense.

I also realize that the above samples especially for Pierce are quite small, but would like to add that Pierce did a fantastic job on Kobe in 2008 when he was given the opportunity as well. Here then are the 2008 NBA finals ppp numbers for the Celtics vs Kobe;

Ray Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 64 Total PPP: .78

James Posey

Total Unique Possessions: 37 Total PPP: .65

Paul Pierce

Total Unique Possessions: 31 Total PPP: .64

Tony Allen

Total Unique Possessions: 4 Total PPP: 0

I’ll be posting some more numbers prior to Game 5.

If his lips are moving...

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:34:00 -0400

So this blog is quickly becoming all Tim Donaghy all the time and I assure you this was never my intention. Unfortunately the Tim Donaghy publicity tour continues, and I really want to set the record straight on some of his claims.

Consider the following excerpt from Donaghy’s work of fiction “Personal Foul”.;

Minnesota at Charlotte

This was a New Year’s Day game and I was in Charlotte for a matchup between the Bobcats and the TImberwolves.

Before the game, I spoke with my group supervisor Jim Wishner. Jim mentioned that Minnesota’s star forward Kevin Garnett had been getting away with a lot of traveling violations and that no one was paying attention to his footwork. Jim expected us to keep an eye on Garnett and to start enforcing the rule.

he goes on to write;

In addition to the anticipated crackdown on Garnett, I liked the way Charlotte coach Bernie Bickerstaff had his squad playing high-energy basketball most nights. I called Tommy and told him to bet Charlotte.

The Bobcats played well early but fell part during the second half, getting outscored 34-18 in the fourth quarter. Garnett played exceptionally well for Minnesota, while Charlotte’s players were arguing amongst themselves all night. Much of the angst was directed at the Bobcat’s Adam Morrison, who took several off-balanced, ill-advised shots down the stretch in what had been a fairly tight contest.

Minnesota kept its composure and pulled out the road win 102-96. It was a loss for me, Tommy, and Ba Ba, and once again there were no apples coming my way.

What if I told you that they didn’t bet Charlotte as Donaghy claims?

I have mentioned before that shortly after news of the Donaghy scandal broke, I was able to procure a list of games that Donaghy’s money movers Jimmy Battista and Tommy Martino had purportedly bet.

In addition to my list there is a book coming out that will tell the story of Jim Battista, and among other things list the games that Battista and his crew bet for Tim Donaghy. I fully expect that the book will detail that Minnesota was the side they bet in this particular game.

Now I don’t expect you to take me at my word. So lets consider some of the evidence.

In my database I have the betting line opening at Minnesota -2.5 and closing at Minnesota -4 - Absent of any injury or late breaking information this usually means that an imbalance in Minnesota wagers forced the linesmakers to move the line to -3.5 or higher.

Or to put it more bluntly, someone bet the shit out of Minnesota - Now the opening and closing lines don’t always tell the story its much better to look at the actual line history of a few books that take big limits.

Pinnacle Sportbook Line History

Cris Sportsbook LIne History

People who are involved in the sportsbetting industry will be able to appreciate just how extreme Pinnacles movement of the juice is - Cris actually moved the game to -4.5 at one point. These are not normal line movements.

Donaghy writes in his book that Battista was really stepping out betting 50k or more on some of Donaghy’s games. How likely is it that someone could bet 50k or more on a game and see the line move 2.5 points AGAINST THEM?

Extremely unlikely if not impossible.

I’d like to add that the actual amount that was wagered was probably closer to 4 or 5x the amount Donaghy mentions. Especially when you think about all the followers and others that may or may not have been aware of these games). The guys betting these games were not treading lightly, and the lines were moving quite a bit. It is very likely that the very books that were taking bets on these games, were going out and betting these games for themselves. This says nothing of the periphery of movers and agents that Battista might have enlisted to help them get down.

Aside from a large volume of one sided action the only other thing that could have caused such abrupt line movement was an injury or some kind of alert of that sort. There was no such information or key injury in this game.

How can we then reconcile Donaghy claiming that this game brought “no apples” as the crew bet on Charlotte and lost?

I alluded to Donaghy’s book as a work of fiction, and I truly feel that much of what he writes is a very special kind of fiction. I believe that Donaghy writes things to purposely deflect and divert people from the truth. So when Donaghy offhandedly mentions a flaw in their system;

Sometimes Tommy was so stoned when I phoned in my picks that he passed on the wrong information to Ba Ba (Battista). At times, I thought that Tommy might be pulling a double cross and filling his own wallet. But no, that wasn’t his style;

It strikes me as odd. I don’t know anything about Tommy, if he was a stoner or wasn’t a stoner - lets call him a stoner. Based on the way these guys conducted themselves in this operation, and the fact that Battista actually did a stint in rehab during the 2007 season it’s very likely that Donaghy is telling the truth.

So while its possible that Donaghy told Martino and Battista to bet Charlotte and they mistakenly bet Minnesota. The fact that Donaghy mentions that this game was a loss and it was their 3rd straight loss in a row leads me to believe that this wouldn’t be the case as I am sure he’d have gotten his “apples” after they won and mistakenly tried to pay him. But lets discount that for a second and take a look at how Donaghy called this game;

Tim Donaghy foul+violation details;

Calls favoring CHA 0

Calls favoring MIN 17

No that is not a typo, Tim Donaghy made 17 fouls+violation calls in this game and all 17 times the call favored Minnesota. Why did Donaghy call this game so egregiously? If you look at the score of the game - When Donaghy makes his 4th call MIN is already trailing by 7 points. By his 7th call they are trailing by 20 - Desperate times call for desperate measures especially as Apples are at stake.

Note that the largest call margin game Donaghy game had a similar pattern. That particular game featured 32 Donaghy calls, 26 favored the team he bet who was also trailing for most of the game.

What then is more likely;

Donaghy told Battista and Martino to bet Charlotte, they mistakenly bet Minnesota. Donaghy didn’t get paid for this game (the man says no apples).

Donaghy happened to call the game very one-sided against the side he thought he bet.

Donaghy told Battista and Martno to bet on Minnesota, they bet on Minnesota. The line moved 1.5 or more points. Minnesota was trailing, Donaghy gave them a little 17-0 call margin help. Minnesota comes back and wins and everyone rejoices in victory (apples for all).

I don’t even think its close.

Which brings me to this, Aside from the fact that Donaghy may or may not be a pathological liar, why Donaghy would go to such lengths to lie about this particular game?

I’ll answer this in my next post.

Regular Season vs Playoff Officiating

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 05:05:00 -0400

Officiating always seems to come under the microscope during the NBA Playoffs. There are some truisms spouted about in the media about how playoff basketball is a much more rough and tumble brand of basketball and further the Refs let them play more. Is this accurate?

Looking at Historical call rates (all types of calls fouls+infractions and violations) in theregular season vs the playoffs here is what we find;

Regular Season;

2003 48.8537

2004 47.511

2005 50.407

2006 51.2699

2007 51.467

2008 47.7211

2009 47.536

2010 47.290

Playoffs

2003 53.397

2004 51.670

2005 51.845

2006 53.842

2007 49.974

2008 50.011

2009 50.647

2010 51.467

2008-2010 Seasons have all featured more calls per game in the Playoffs vs the Regular Season.

Tim Donaghy vs Derrick Stafford

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 02:37:00 -0400

I have mentioned in previous posts how some of Tim Donaghy’s alleged betting methods were debunked over at True Hoop.

One of the games that Donaghy and his crew bet was a February 26th 2007 game withMIA @ NYK.

In his book Donaghy explains why he decided to bet on NYK -3

Madison Square Garden was the place to be for a marquee matchup between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks. I worked the game with Derrick Stafford and Gary Zielinski, knowing that the Knicks were a sure bet to get favorable treatment that night. Derrick Stafford had a close relationship with Knicks coach Isiah Thomas, and he despised Heat coach Pat Riley. I picked the Knicks without batting an eye and settled in for a roller-coaster ride on the court.

He goes on to write later in the book about this same game;

I worked a Knicks game in MSG with him on Feb 26, 2007. New York shot an astounding 39 free throws to Miami’s paltry eight. It seemed like Stafford was working for the Knicks, calling fouls on Miami like crazy. (page 109).

I went ahead and charted each call in this game to see if Donaghy’s claims were accurate, here are the results.

Derrick Stafford 16 total calls

9 calls favoring NYK

7 calls favoring MIA

Gary Zielinksi 6 total calls

3 favoring NYK

3 favoring MIA

Tim Donaghy 18 total calls

14 calls favoring NYK

4 Calls favoring MIA

This specific game is rather endemic of the whole Donaghy scandal - Not only did Stafford not call fouls like “crazy” in this game - but the one who actually did exhibit a clear tendency to favor one team over the other was Tim Donaghy himself.

A failed Fix.

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 02:38:00 -0400

I’ll be looking specifically at the following game;

February 25th 2007 HOU@ORL

Tick by tick line history for this game from Pinnacle;

This game has very sharp and pronounced line movement. The line opens with Houston a 2 point favorite, and closes with Orlando a 1.5 point favorite.

Looking over archived injury alerts for this day there were no urgent messages or late messages that would have caused such a large line movement. Why then did this game move so much more than other Donaghy games?

I think one possible reason would be that at this point Donaghy and Battista had been working together for almost 3 months - and the books and people they were betting with started to take notice. It’s also very likely that another group not involved with Donaghy and Battista also liked this game and were betting it as well - either way the line moved a fair bit.

Another relevant detail in this game was HOU had been playing without a backup PG for some time now - this will become important as we go over some of the calls.

In poker we refer to “tells”

There is a famous scene in Rounders where Mike discovers KGBs tell;

Here is Donaghy’s tell;

Call 1

HOU 22 ORL 13

I wholeheartedly believe that if you had no prior knowledge to which side Donaghy and his crew bet, or weren’t privy to any type of inside information (be it testimony - or access to some of his wagering accounts) and you wanted to know which side Donaghy bet on - merely looking at his his illegal defense call would be quite the start.

Call 2

HOU 22 ORL 14 ORL

This is a marginal foul call. When the Pedowitz Report talks about Nunns investigation of Donaghy’s play calls, its pretty clear that this play wouldn’t be assessed as a “bad” call - its marginal and it could go either way.

Call 3

HOU 30 ORL 19 ORL trailing by 11 points

On a per game basis I am fairly certain that Donaghy led all NBA officials in illegal defense calls in the 2007 season, I say fairly certain because I did not ref chart all of the 2007 season, in addition there were a small percentage of clips / games that I did not have video for. That being said I think it is very unlikely that any other officials who called more than 20 games had a higher per game ratio of illegal defense calls.

In the 2007 Season regular season Tim Donaghy officiated 69 games, in those 69 games he called 44 illegal defense violations. Another odd factor in this is that in those 69 games - he called more than one illegal defense violations on 13 occasions. 12 out of the 13 times the illegal defense calls favored the same team.

Donaghy call by call details for this game;

Call 4

HOU 30 ORL 21

Here we have the following clip which is actually a fairly obvious travel.

This call benefits ORL but isn’t even in the marginal category in my opinion as Head clearly changes his pivot foot.

Call 5

HOU 34 ORL 27 ORL trailing by 7 points.

This call here is definitely a marginally bad call, its also especially important as its called on Houston’s Rafer Alston and remember we mentioned that Houston was only playing the one point guard (Rafer).

Rafer was vital to the Rockets that night, he actually ends the game with 20 points on 11 shots and had 5 assists to the 1 turnover.

Call 6

HOU 34 ORL 28

This is one of my favorite calls in the game from a subtlety standpoint and its multi faceted;

1. The call is made against McGrady.

2. This is McGrady’s second foul of the game (he ends the game with 4 fouls) and picks up his 3rd foul a few plays later an sits for the last 3:47 seconds of the 2q.

McGrady ended the game with 34 points on 20 shots (although he did turn the ball over 7 times).

I’d actually classify the above foul as a bad call in that if you are going to call a foul on someone during that play, you’d call it against Mutumbo and not McGrady.

Call 7

HOU 45 ORL 36

This might be a foul and it might not be a foul - Gary Zielinski has better position on the play and he chooses not to make the call - Donaghy however sees it as a foul and ORL is in the penalty so D. Howard shoots 2 free throws.

Call 8

This is a traveling call on Rafer Alston and is a clear travel, no need to show the clip on this one as its clearly a studder step travel.

Call 9

HOU 63 ORL 53 (6 mins remaining in the 3q)

This is another marginal bordering on chintzy call - its definitely not a call you see a whole lot in the NBA - Donaghy calls 3 travels and in this game, none of which benefit HOU.

Call 10

HOU 72 ORL 70 with 1 min remaining in the 3q

Is one of the two fouls Donaghy calls against ORL, its a play at the basket where McGrady is fouled rather by Dwight Howard. This is an auto call.

Call 11

This is another marginal call that you could also argue was a phantom call. My favorite part of this clip is where Battier does a double take.

Call 12

HOU 81 ORL 73 8:50 remaining in the 4q

This is clip that I teased a few weeks ago - Its obviously a horribly bad call. Its clear as day that if anyone commits a foul in this play its Luther Head and not Rafer Alston. Refs are normally loathe to call the 5th and 6th fouls on starters (A study was presented on this earlier this year)

Donaghy not only makes the incorrect call but he exarcebates his mistake by calling a technical foul on Alston as well. I have been told by someone who was at the game that Derrick Stafford tries to get Donaghy to change the call to Head but Donaghy was adamant that he made the correct call and ignored Stafford. The significance of having the call assessed to Alston is that he’ll have to either sit for an indeterminate amount of time or play with 5 fouls.

The Rockets elect to sit Rafer until the 2:31 mark of the 4th quarter. When Rafer leaves the game the score is 81-74 for HOU - he returns with the score 90-85. We mentioned before that Houston only had the one PG and had to go with Luther Head playing extended mins at the point - here is what happens when you try and play for too long without a PG

Call 13

Immediately after the bad call on Rafer and the resulting technical, Donaghy issues a makeup call by calling a touchy foul on a Bonzi Wells layup attempt. This one of only 2 of 16 calls Donaghy makes that favor Houston.

Call 14

Hou 84 ORL 76 7:09 remaining in the 4q

This in my opinion is another really bad call by Donaghy, the announcer states that he isn’t sure that the basket is continuation, I’ll take it a step further - where is the actual foul by Head? Even if you can make the argument that Donaghy did see enough to call a foul on Head, its pretty clear that this is not continuation.

Call 15

HOU 89 ORL 83 4:31 remaining

Another marginal bordering on bad call by Donaghy, the real interesting thing about this play is that Donaghy is once again off the play when making this call. Derrick Stafford is directly under the basket and doesn’t deem the play worthy of a foul. Note that in this clip Donaghy isn’t even in the frame, it is clear however that neither Stafford nor Zeilinski make the call. In addition, when the whistle blows several players react in the direction of Donaghy. Thus it is pretty clear that Donaghy was the official that made this marginal call.

Call 16

HOU 90 ORL 85

Is a rather clear foul where Bonzi Wells intentionally tries to stop Ariza from making a layup. This is an automatic call for any official including Donaghy.

For those that would like to advocate the case that perhaps Donaghy just calls the game closer than most and thus all these marginal / bad calls are the result of his officiating style I’d like to offer the following clip;

When you watch the replay Donaghy has a clear angle on this play and he elects to not make the call - when you compare this to some of the chintzy fouls he called against the HOU defenders you definitely notice the contrast.

So there you have it, I titled this post anatomy of a failed fix because despite Donaghy’s best efforts - he actually lost this bet as Houston went on to win the game 97-93 - mainly on the strength of 10 more 3 point makes.

Here are the 16 fouls+violations that Donaghy called in the...

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:05:00 -0400

Here are the 16 fouls+violations that Donaghy called in the HOU@ORL game mentioned.

Donaghy Call rates

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:33:00 -0400

In my last post I linked to a rather benign possession on a play that may or may not have been a marginal call by Tim Donaghy. One could argue that if Donaghy really wanted to fix games he could have called been even more blatant and called an offensive foul on Shaquille. In general this isn’t how Donaghy operated, what Donaghy actually did do was to try and avoid the really blatantly bad calls as much as possible and instead focused on exerting a collection of very marginal or questionable calls in the favor of his team.

Later on we’ll see that he didn’t always succeed in avoiding making the really blatantly bad calls but for now lets focus on what I feel is a clear pattern of Donaghy making a collection of calls that favor the side he is betting on -

there are a number of games where Donaghy makes an unusually high ratio of calls favoring one team over the other - the common denominator in these games (aside from the fact that he bet them) is that his bet was in jeopardy. This is why when the Pedowitz report states;

In some of these games, Donaghy appeared to do a good job and made virtually no errors. In others, he made a substantial number of errors, but the errors did not seem to favor one team over another. In still other games, there were no errors at the critical points of the game, or there was an error that might in isolation raise some suspicion but that seemed to be offset by another error that favored the other team. One game ― Detroit at New Jersey ― raised concerns that Donaghy’s calls and substantial errors might have been aimed at favoring Detroit (which covered the point spread).

It’s a little disingenuous - for one how does an error not seem to favor one team or another, I am a little unclear on this. They they later state that “some calls may have favored one team, when later calls favored the other team” My response to this would be to ask if all there calls are equal?

When you look back at one of my previous posts where we discuss the ev of specific calls its pretty safe to say that all calls are not equal - in addition how did they reconcile a collection of make up calls late in games where the spread was no longer in question?

Lets first look at the raw call data in a few Donaghy games starting with the game mentioned in the Pedowitz Report,

DET@NJN on December 16th 2006

Donaghy called 23 violations, infractions + fouls here is how they broke down;

17 favored DET

6 favored NJN

* note that this game is a prime example of how especially early on in Donaghy and Battista’s relationship its not enough to look at the opening line vs the closing line to determine which side Donaghy and his crew bet on. This game featured a 1.5 point line movement on the opposite side the crew bet.

Detroit Covered.

MIN@CHA on January 1 2007

Donaghy called 17 infractions+violations+fouls in this game;

17 favored Minnesota

0 favored Charlotte

Minnesota came from 20 down to cover 2.5 point spread.

MIL@IND on February 21 2007

Donaghy made 32 calls

26 favored Milwaukee

6 favored Indiana

Milwaukee covered.

HOU@ORL on February 25th 2007